The federal government hasn’t done much when it comes to regulating the use of antibiotics on the farm. So one state is stepping in with the strictest law in the country.
The drugs are commonly used to make animals grow faster and become more resistant to disease, but public health officials have warned that the animals become resistant to the drugs and can pass that resistance on to humans.
The Food and Drug Administration created a program by which volunteers could curb the use of antibiotics in livestock. California, meanwhile, has made such a program mandatory.
Last month, California’s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law requiring all farmers to get permission from a veterinarian to use antibiotics on livestock.
California state Sen. Jerry Hill sponsored the legislation, which was years in the making. Hill’s office reached out to farming groups, poultry and grain producers to get their thoughts on the bill.
“They were as concerned about antibiotic resistant bacteria as anybody else was,” Hill told the Washington Examiner.
Those concerns are echoed in the private sector. Major grocery chains such as Wegmans, Whole Foods and Walmart are joining restaurant chains such as Chipotle, Panera and Chick-fil-A to buy only antibiotic-free meat from suppliers.
The actions are in response to growing public awareness over the link between antibiotic resistance and meat. Public health officials caution that widespread antibiotic use in livestock can lead to the development of resistant microbes, which are then passed on to humans when the meat is consumed.
About 2 million people a year get infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and at least 23,000 people die from it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hill said when he saw those figures a few years ago it prompted him to take up the bill. An earlier version made it to Brown’s desk last year, but was vetoed because it didn’t go far enough.
Hill reworked the bill and reached a tacit agreement with the farming lobby that it would remain neutral.
One of the industry’s main concerns was that some farms are in remote areas where there aren’t any veterinarians. So the law doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2018, giving remote farmers an opportunity to establish a relationship with a vet who will have an understanding of their livestock.
If an issue comes up, such as livestock getting sick and needing antibiotics, the vet can use telemedicine to discuss it with the farmer, Hill said.
Even after reworking the bill to get the governor’s approval, Hill faced opposition from an unlikely source: environmental groups. “The environmental movement took a different perspective and didn’t want to see any use of antibiotics,” Hill said.
But Hill said he believes in judicious use of antibiotics. “There were instances under supervision of a licensed vet that it should be used,” he said.
Hill said his bill could work at the federal level, and there is already an effort to do so.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., introduced a bill that allows livestock to be treated with antibiotics, but only in cases of illness.
“Regulations by federal agencies and state-led initiatives have moved the country in the right direction, but the work is not complete and won’t be complete until there is comprehensive federal legislation protecting medically essential antibiotics,” Slaughter wrote in an op-ed in The Hill newspaper.
